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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 55
15 - 21 August 2001


CONTENTS:

ERITREA: Government arrests critics, halts private press
ERITREA: 130 million dollars pledged for demobilisation
ETHIOPIA: Security tightened at Bole airport
ETHIOPIA: Paedophile suspect denied bail
ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: UN mission's mandate extended
ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: Bilateral relations still "terribly polarised"
ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: UNMEE to investigate shooting incident
SOMALIA: Parliament condemns terrorist attacks on US
SOMALIA: EC advises NGOs to temporarily withdraw staff
SOMALIA: Puntland conference suspended again
AFRICA: New OAU head takes over


ERITREA: Government arrests critics, halts private press

The Eritrean government arrested six of its former members turned critics,
and ordered the indefinite closure of the country's independent press on
Tuesday. An Eritrean official confirmed to IRIN that six former members of
the ruling party, the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) had
been arrested, and said that eight privately run newspapers had been
"temporarily suspended". The six arrested were all members of the
so-called G-15 group who in May this year openly criticised Eritrean
President Isayas Aferwerki and were subsequently sacked. Eritrea's
independent press has in recent months become a forum for the reform
debate, which was sparked by the calls for reform issued by the G-15
group.  [For full details see IRIN Special report headlined: "Former
ministers arrested, independent press shut down"]

On Wednesday, the authorities arrested five more members of the G-15. The
five were also former senior members of the PFDJ, Reuters reported. The
PFDJ, which has ruled Eritrea since independence in 1993, reported on
their official Shaebia web site that all those arrested were being held
following a meeting in New York on 18 August, during which they had
allegedly decided to step up their opposition to the Eritrean government.
According to the PFDJ statement, the G-15 members decided at the meeting
that the most crucial task at hand was the "organisation of secret cells
[wahios] inside and outside the country", and announced that "secret
contacts had been established with regional countries". Of the 15
dissenters, 11 are now in jail, three are currently living in the United
States, and the remaining one, Muhammad Berhan Belata, withdrew from the
group and rejoined the government.

Meanwhile, the press freedom lobby group Reporters Sans Frontieres
(Reporters Without Borders), on Tuesday sent an official letter of to
President Isayas, protesting against the suspension of the eight privately
owned newspapers, and called on him to rescind the order as soon as
possible.

ERITREA: 130 million dollars pledged for demobilisation

Eritrea's development partners have pledged US $130 million towards the
country's demobilisation programme, the Eritrean ruling PFDJ web site,
Shaebia, reported on 14 September. The pledges came at the end of a
three-day conference, during which Eritrea presented its Transitional
Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy, as well as details of its
Demobilisation and Reintegration Programme (DRP), said Shaebia. The cost
of the DRP would be US $190 million, which meant there would be a
shortfall of US $60 million. Eritrea was already in the process of
implementing the DRP with a view to demobilising 200,000 soldiers over the
next 18 months.

Addressing the conference, Eritrean President Isayas Aferwerki said that,
under the demobilisation programme, 20,000 soldiers had already been
placed in civilian jobs. However, he cautioned the conference participants
that everything - including the size and pace of the DRP - would depend on
the progress of the peace process, according to Shaebia. He urged donor
countries to bring pressure to bear on Ethiopia to abide by the peace
agreements. The biggest contributors to the DRP are the World Bank, with
US $90 million, and the European Union (EU), with 47 million euros (US
$42.8 million), while the Netherlands, which is already funding a pilot
phase to demobilise 5,000 soldiers at a cost of US $4 million, has pledged
another US $12.5 million. Denmark and Norway had respectively pledged US
$2.5 million and US $1 million, said Shaebia.

ETHIOPIA: Security tightened at Bole airport

Security is to be tightened at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa
following the terrorist attacks on Washington and New York. The Ethiopian
Civil Aviation authority said new security procedures were already in
place at the airport, the official Ethiopian News Agency (ENA) reported on
15 September. Abraham Abebe, the Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority's
acting head of security, told ENA that new procedures designed to heighten
security in and around the airport included more elaborate passenger and
luggage searches, new restrictions on what objects could be carried aboard
aircraft, and tighter controls on vehicles and non-passengers entering the
airport. Security at Bole has been among the tightest in the region since
November 1996 when an Ethiopian Airlines plane on its way to Abidjan was
hijacked, and which then crashed off the coast of the Comoros Islands.

ETHIOPIA: Paedophile suspect denied bail

A man suspected of sexually abusing children under his care at an
orphanage in Ethiopia has been denied bail, the pro-government Walta
Information Centre reported on 14 September. David Allen Christie, a
British citizen, was denied bail after the prosecutor informed the court
that the accused had no permanent residence in Ethiopia. Reuters had on 12
September reported that Christie was granted bail after his lawyer told
the court that prison conditions were adversely affecting his client's
health to the extent that his life was in danger. Christie was accused of
committing sodomy against 15 Ethiopian children, and was also facing
criminal charges of trafficking in children, said Walta. He was arrested
at Addis Ababa's Bole International Airport on 17 August, following a
joint operation between Ethiopian and Zambian police, who suspected he was
planning to open a children's home in Zambia.

ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: UN mission's mandate extended

The UN Security Council voted unanimously on 14 September to extend the
mandate of the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) for
a further six months until 15 March 2002. The Council called on both
parties to cooperate fully with UNMEE in the implementation of its
mandate, and to abide by the spirit of the agreements signed between them.
The Council called on Ethiopia and Eritrea to urgently resolve outstanding
issues and fulfil their obligation to provide freedom of movement for
UNMEE personnel.

The Council called on Eritrea to allow UNMEE to monitor the 15-km strip
north of the Temporary Security Zone (TSZ), while urging Ethiopia to allow
UNMEE freedom of movement in the 15-km strip south of the TSZ. The
Security Council also insisted that both parties provide accurate
information on minefields. In particular, the Council urged both Ethiopia
and Eritrea to pursue confidence-building measures and to redirect their
efforts away from weapons procurement towards the reconstruction and
development of their economies. The current number of UNMEE personnel
(4,000 peacekeepers and 250 military observers) will remain the same.

ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: Bilateral relations still "terribly polarised"

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the United Nations
Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) said last week that Ethiopia and
Eritrea remained "terribly polarised", and cited this as the major
obstacle to normalising relations between them. "There is still a lot of
bitterness between them," Legwaila Joseph Legwaila told journalists in New
York after addressing the UN Security Council on 13 September. Legwaila
said UNMEE's main achievement had been the separation of the forces and
the creation of the temporary security zone, but admitted that "the
mission has not achieved every objective that we wanted to achieve".

Legwaila said the main obstacle to further progress stemmed from the
difficulties that arose from negotiating the demarcation of their common
border. "Our work is tied to the work of the Boundary Commission [and we]
can only complete our mission if the Boundary Commission completes its
work, announces the decision, and the parties accept it." Legwaila said
the only forum where Ethiopian and Eritrean representatives were willing
to sit down together was the Military Coordination Commission. "We are
worried that the longer they take to begin the process of normalising
their relations the longer and harder it will be for them to do it after
we have left. I keep telling them that every successful peacekeeping
operation is successful because of the cooperation of the parties."

ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: UNMEE to investigate shooting incident

The United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) is to
investigate a shooting incident in the TSZ which occurred on 5 September.
One Eritrean policeman was shot in the leg during the night attack, which
took place close to the Assab-Bure road, according to a UN press
statement. UNMEE said its ongoing investigations had not yet identified
the attackers, but the Eritrean authorities have blamed the Ethiopian
armed forces. The incident took place close to the Limosin water point,
where a previous shooting incident took place in June, leaving one
Eritrean militiaman dead. UNMEE is yet to identify the perpetrators of
that earlier attack.

SOMALIA: Parliament condemns terrorist attacks on US

The Speaker of the Transitional National Assembly (TNA) opened its third
session on 16 September, a senior member of the Transitional National
Government (TNG) told IRIN. The opening of this session of the TNA, which
was a year old last month, was attended by Abdiqassim Salad Hassan, the
TNG president, and Ali Khalif Galayr, the prime minister, said Abdirahman
Dinari, the TNG director of information. The parliament opened its
deliberations by condemning last week's terrorist attacks in the United
States. According to Dinari, MPs described the attacks as "inhuman and
against Islamic principles". The parliament declared that it "stood in
solidarity" with the people and government of the United States in these
difficult times, he said. On 12 September, the TNG president, in a letter
of condolence to President George W. Bush of the United States, said he
deplored "this cowardly terrorist action", which had led to "the tragic
deaths of innocent American citizens".

Meanwhile, prime minister Ali Khalif Galayr has denied that Osama bin
Laden, the prime suspect behind last week's terrorist attacks on
Washington and New York, has any links to the Somali government. "We would
like to share with the international community that the Somali Government
has neither a direct link nor an indirect relationship with Osama bin
Laden," Galayr said in a press statement on Friday. He said the Somali
government supported all international efforts designed to eradicate
terrorism and warned against unfounded and baseless accusations by "those
who want to harm the reputation of the Somali government".

SOMALIA: EC advises NGOs to temporarily withdraw staff

The European Commission (EC) has recommended to international NGOs whose
operations in Somalia it funds to temporarily withdraw staff, an EC source
told IRIN. The recommendation to either "withdraw or reduce expatriate
staff" was given to the NGOs on Wednesday "as a precautionary measure
until the situation becomes more clear", said the source. International
NGO sources told IRIN that there was concern that any action taken by the
US government in reaction to the New York and Washington terrorist attacks
of last week "may create unstable conditions in Somalia", a mainly Muslim
country. "Our hope is that this will be over-precautious and that nothing
will happen." All EC-funded projects would remain active and be carried
out by national staff, one source said.

There was, however, a worry within the NGO community that EC-funded ECHO
flights, which transport the bulk of humanitarian and medical provisions
to Somalia, might be suspended. "If that were to happen, our services to
the needy people of Somalia will be seriously affected," another of the
NGO sources told IRIN. The EC source said ECHO flights were still
operating and "will continue to fly, and there are no plans to ground
them". Most of the NGOs IRIN spoke to expressed the hope that the
withdrawal of staff would be of short duration.

SOMALIA: Puntland conference suspended again

The conference of the representatives of the constituent regions of the
self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, northeastern Somalia, has
again been suspended, this time for two days, a local journalist told
IRIN. The general congress, which opened in Garowe, the regional capital,
on 26 August, was then suspended to give some delegates, who had not by
then arrived, more time to do so, and also to make time available to
resolve some differences over procedures. The latest suspension followed a
complaint by one of the sub-clans participating in the conference to the
effect that it had not been accorded its fair share of delegates, Adan
Abdirahman Dolar, editor of the Garowe-based 'Nugal Times', said. The
Awrtable sub-clan of the Darod told the conference chairman that "they
should have two more delegates from Bur Tinle district [70 km south of
Garowe]", Dolar said.

The Awrtable share the district with the more numerous Umar Mahmud
sub-clan of the Majerten, which, they claimed, was unfairly allotted seats
which should have gone to Awrtable delegates. Following the complaint,
other delegates expressed the opinion that in view of the minority status
of the Awrtable the conference should be suspended until the issue was
resolved, Dolar told IRIN. Meanwhile, the conference issued a statement
condemning last week's terrorist attacks on the United States in which
many innocent lives were lost, Dolar said.

AFRICA: New OAU head takes over

The new secretary-general of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU),
Amara Essy, an Ivorian, formally assumed leadership of the continental
organisation in Addis Ababa on 17 September, the pro-Ethiopian government
Walta Information Centre has reported. Essy, a former foreign minister and
UN ambassador, will oversee the transformation of the OAU into the
recently formed African Union. He has taken over from veteran diplomat
Salim Ahmed Salim, who has been OAU secretary-general since 1989.

Nairobi, 21 September 2001


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2001


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